North Cascades National Park

Adding to the 'American Alps'

A third of a million acres of new park and wilderness lands could be added to North Cascades National Park if a new citizen-directed campaign kicked off this spring is successful. Washington Pass and Snowy Lakes are two of the better known beauty spots some say should be added to the national park.

The initiative is called the American Alps Legacy Project and is led by a committee of upstarts and veterans, including Patrick Goldsworthy, Polly Dyer, and Phil Zalesky of the North Cascades Conservation Council, or N3C. Goldsworthy, Dyer, and Zalesky helped found the N3C more than 50 years ago and successfully campaigned for North Cascades National Park, established by Congress in 1968. The trio was also instrumental in the designation of Glacier Peak Wilderness by the U.S. Forest Service in 1960, four years before passage of the Wilderness Act.

Goldsworthy, N3C’s chairman of the board, thinks Congress left too much pristine wildland out of the park back then. It’s high time those areas were protected, he said. “I want future generations to enjoy these places, just like I have,” says Goldsworthy who recently turned 90